New Topic: Immigration

For the week of April 26 - May 2 (Sorry this is late.)

The issue of illegal immigration seems to be heating up again. Between the worries about the swine flu, which has people demanding the border between Mexico and the U.S. be closed, and the recent debate about the Dream Act, which would allow illegal immigrants who have lived in the US for three years and graduated from an American high school (You don't need to be a legal citizen to attend public school -- you all knew that, right?) to pay the lower, in-state tuition for state colleges, and the recent decision to overturn Columbia County's own Illegal Workers Act (Sorry about the biased source -- the news was apparently too small to hit major media. But they seem to have the facts right, if not fair commentary from the other side.), it seems like the question of how the US should handle illegal aliens has become the argument of the day.

So we should talk about it. What is your opinion? How much of a problem are illegal aliens in the US? Is there any benefit to the presence of illegal aliens here? What, if anything, should be done about them, and why?

By the way: when I have talked about this in the past, people get very over-sensitive about accusations of racism related to this issue. So here's the general rule. Commenting on something obvious and observably true about a race or group of people -- people of African descent have darker skin than people of European descent -- is not racist, though it's usually a good idea to qualify things like that, since there are always exceptions to the rule. Commenting on something that seems generally true and is observable/provable, but is not negative -- most illegal immigrants are from Mexico -- may be stereotypical, but is not generally racist. Making a comment about an entire group that is not observable or provable, and is negative -- Mexicans are dirty and uneducated; Americans are intolerant rednecks -- that's racist. There's gray area, but that's basically it. Now: if you are comfortable with your racism, go ahead and post a racist rant -- though you should keep it clean. You really won't suffer any punishment for it other than people thinking you are racist. Please keep your comments civil.

Go to it.